


Oaths and Other Wonder-Tales

by celebros



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Dazhis-Related Angst, Canon-Typical Pronouns, Canon-Typical Sweet Cinnamon Rolls Too Good For This World, Gen, Oaths & Vows, The Emperor's Dav
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: Beshelar is in his smallclothes, towering over a shivering Mer Aisava, thunder in his brows and not a whit of self-consciousness. "Serenity?" he asks, and Aisava shakes his head, and this is how Cala begins the worst hour of his life.
Relationships: Cala Athmaza & Dazhis Athmaza, Cala Athmaza & Deret Beshelar, Cala Athmaza & Deret Beshelar & Maia Drazhar, Cala Athmaza & Maia Drazhar, Csevet Aisava & Maia Drazhar, Deret Beshelar & Bunu Telimezh
Comments: 14
Kudos: 61





	Oaths and Other Wonder-Tales

Cala turns, adjusting his sheets, and hears an irritated huff of breath from the other side of the partition. "Deret?" he whispers.

"What," the soldier grates, irritated, his voice echoing in the way that means he's facing away: towards the humming open of his own space, rather than the too-thin silk screen that separates their bunks.

"Ought we have done differently? Monitored his drinking, or done aught to check in when his tongue seemed looser?"

"Are we to know your place better than you, maza?" He sighs, and Cala hears him turn in bed. When he speaks again, his voice is clearer, closer. "In truth, I wondered much the same. We think it best we ask His Serenity the selfsame question. _Tomorrow_."

"Of course," Cala says. "Good night."

Deret grunts and rolls away again. Cala closes his eyes and begins his sleep ritual. Deep, quiet breaths, drawn and held and released with a steady count. He envisions the autumn field on the mountain where he was raised, dew weighing down the heads of the cattails, the sound of the goats in the upper pasture, the song of the wind where it whistles over the rocks.

He is there, still and peaceful, and then he is drifting.

And then --

It's Deret's gasp that wakes him, scant seconds before the pounding at the door. There's something wrong in that, like fear, and Deret isn't a man who fears easily, so what --

The voice at the door is brittle and frantic. It's calling for _him_. "Cala," it's saying in a high, thin wail. "Cala, Lieutenant, at once." Deret is on his feet, moving already; Cala half-falls from his bed, yanking his robe from the wall and getting it at least half over his head before the door opens. Beshelar is in his smallclothes, towering over a shivering Mer Aisava, thunder in his brows and not a whit of self-consciousness. "Serenity?" he asks, and Aisava shakes his head, and this is how Cala begins the worst hour of his life.

"He's gone. He's -- we can't find him."

Deret steps back as if slapped, then turns and pulls on breeches. "Our Seconds?" he asks.

"Dazhis can't be found. Telimezh is insensible but alive. Nemer was roused at some noise, knocked unconscious with a candlestick, badly injured, we fear. That was nearly forty minutes ago."

"Fuck. Fuck. _No_ ," Beshelar says, abandoning his scramble for his padding and armor and instead grabbing his sword.

They run, together, Aisava bobbing at their heels. Cala isn't sure where it is they're running until they're in the doorway, looking into the disheveled bedchamber, and he can _taste_ the maz, maz so familiar that for a moment he thinks it his own and imagines this a nightmare.

Telimezh is sprawled under the window, laced tight with the strings of Dazhis's cantrip, and Cala's mouth is dry. Beshelar is at his Second's side, checking his pulse, turning his head to look for a wound that isn't there. Cala stops him, a hand on his shoulder; he swallows, but words don't come, so he flickers and flourishes and produces the counterspell, unwinding the great serpentine mass that Dazhis had left behind and trying not to be selfish, trying not to think, _How could he do this to me? He must have known I'd be the one to find him._

Telimezh gasps and convulses, and Deret's eyes close. It's relief, and realization, and sharp fury, and _fear_. "The maza," he growls, and Telimezh cries aloud, wordless with a cocktail of grief and terror, the same storm of emotions they are all sharing.

Cala is cold.

In the room without, Csevet is consulting with Captain Orthema, who is also out of his armor, hair falling loose of a broad braid. "-- within, so Princess Sheveän or perhaps the young zhasanai."

"And if not?"

Csevet hesitates. "Dach'osmer Tethimar," he says, wavering. "Or -- we scarcely dare to say it, but it has crossed our mind, so we cannot fail to suggest -- the Lord Chancellor?"

"The edocharis thought he saw guards," Orthema says. "That puts the princess to the front of our list. Amu, take Neha's unit, but be discreet. We cannot risk a hostage scenario." Cala starts to the door, but Orthema stops him with a gesture. "An our Mer Aisava is right, His Serenity will not be _there_. Best you stay, both, and when we've a lead we shall dispatch you from here."

"If Leilis Athmaza is there, he can send us a message quicker than any pneumatic," Cala says, and is about to add _and we trust him_ , but the words turn to ash in his mouth. His blood runs hot for a hard moment, rushing in his ears, and then he is cold again, awareness flooding back. The Guards have gone. Cala steps to the bed, runs his hands in the sheets in search of further maz, but there is nothing. Deret and Bunu are speaking in low, rough voices, their language some kind of shorthand that Cala can't understand at the moment. Bunu is choking. _He thinks we are going to die,_ Cala realizes.

Cala closes his eyes and _reaches_ , but it's been an hour by now, if Nemer’s remembrance of the clock is to be believed. Any trail is cold.

 _Maia,_ he thinks, and then has to swallow another wash of shame. How is it that he has come to think of his Emperor by his given name, even in his own thoughts? Ridiculous. Childish. _He would be happy,_ he thinks, and then quashes the thought violently and _reaches_ again.

"Maza, what art thou doing?" Deret asks quietly. Cala blinks his eyes open, distracted and frustrated.

"I'm trying to _find_ him."

"Dazhis?"

" _Serenity_ ," Cala says desperately.

"Ist possible?" Bunu asks.

"No," Deret says. "We would as soon track his footsteps on the flagstones."

"You ought," Cala says sharply. "Perhaps he left us something, some sign."

"We do not live in a wonder-tale, maza." The scornful, _Unlike thee,_ need not be said for its impact to be felt, a punch straight to Cala’s core.

"Your plan, then?"

Deret rises from where he has been knelt beside his Second ( _I don't have a Second anymore,_ Cala thinks wildly) and nods tightly, moving to the door. When Cala follows, he frowns. "We need not --" he begins.

"I've sworn an oath to protect thee, too, Deret," Cala says. And he remembers: holding the surly soldier's rough hands and speaking the Words, seeing the flicker in his eyes as Cala had said, in earnest: _We will be thy shield arm, thy salvation and thy shelter, and we will bolster thee… for sundered from thee will mean to be no longer ourselves._ He swallows. "Can'st thou trust me to fulfill it?"

Deret whirls on him, his face a snarling rictus. " _Yes_ ," he says, "we _know_ you, Cala Athmaza, we _know_ thou could'st never --" He stops, the eyes of the room on him. Cala chooses not to look. Chooses not to know if they glint with fear or with fire. Or with tears.

They meet Esaran on the stairs, wide-eyed but steady. "Any word?" she asks.

"The Guard are following speculations, and we are seeking something more concrete to chase."

"Is Bunu --?"

"Alive. Awake," Deret says, "and able to tell us nothing. He fell under the maza's treachery ere any other die was cast."

I'm _the maza_ , Cala wants to correct. _That's what thou call'st_ me, _do not soil it_. A heave sweeps through his body, suppressed before Esaran can see but not, Cala thinks, before Deret.

The proud line of the steward's shoulders sags, but Deret has no more mind for her, and they continue to the place where the winding stairs split and hover there a moment, hesitating. Left, or forwards?

Mer Aisava appears on the steps above them. His face is pale, his eyes red but not wet. "Is there aught we might do?" he asks, and Cala cannot think.

"Another pair of eyes would not go amiss," Deret says before the quiet grows too long, and Cala feels a rush of love for his soldier, for the kind strong heart under all his bramble and scowl.

They go forwards, further down, but before they've reached the second branch in the corridors, Cala feels the soft impact of maz on his body, and reacts before he can recognize its source, whirling with arms raised. Deret's sword is up in a second, Aisava ducking to the ground to be out of their way, and Cala has to gasp, "No, it's not -- it's fine, just --" as he untangles the message.

Leilis Athmaza speaks to him, and only to him, his voice a wild tangle and a haze wreathed about him, fuzzing his edges. "Nohecharis maza. We believe the men of our household to have taken His Serenity belowgrounds, in the passages between the north sluiceway and the pipeworks that control the steam to the Alcethmeret flooring." The message-maz is embedded with directions, and Cala feels them begin to pull at him as soon as they're spoken, but Leilis continues, " _Please_ , go quickly but with all care, your Guards are returning to you, but they will be some minutes yet and we are afraid. They came back not twenty minutes past, to take away Prince Idra, but we swear he could not be complicit in this. _Please_."

Cala is _cold_. There's only one reason he can think that they would need the boy Prince, and that's if he's not to be a Prince any longer. He's hit with a wave of dizziness, and then anger at his own weakness. Had he not trained for this? Is he not meant to be the strongest of mind, the fairest of spirit?

"Maza?" Deret asks, more hesitant than Cala's ever heard him. And then: "Cala?"

"Follow me," Cala says. "I - I know where -"

"Alive?" Deret asks.

"We cannot know." He turns to Mer Aisava. "Fetch Captain Orthema and as many of his men as can'st muster in five minutes, and bring them to us at the north sluiceway. Go." He does, racing away, and Cala grasps Deret's hand and pulls him to the next corridor, and then the long stair winding down.

On the third landing, it strikes him: "Deret, an we meet him --"

No need to say who he means by _him_. Beshelar responds dispassionately, still in fluid motion, "We are like to kill him, maza. Ritual be damned, and any love we held for him be damned, and all our oaths save one."

"Listen, soldier, for thy emperor's sake! An we meet him, thou must leave him to me. His maz is strong, and Serenity may need thee hale and whole. Even an they've not touched him, he'll be frightened, and thou must be prepared to carry him out."

"We will do our duty, maza. Of that you may be certain."

"Deret, he will need thee, for he may fear me."

At that the lieutenant's eyes flash fire. "And what cause do you have to speculate _that_?"

"If he's seen maz done -- powerful maz, wielded in ill intent --"

"He's been led out by men with swords too, but we do not see you fretting that he may fear _us_."

"Maz is different, Deret," Cala says, tired and frightened and sick with anger and grief. "Dost thou listen?"

"I hear thee, maza," the soldier bites. "If thy fear manifests, I'll do whatever I must to protect him, as thou well know'st. Which way?"

Two of Orthema's men meet them at the entrance to the underground passageway, but it takes several minutes more until Cala finds the closed stone door. There are raised voices within. Neither of them are Maia's.

Soft footsteps approach behind them, and Aisava arrives with eight more men and a glowering Orthema. The former courier is pink instead of pale now, and he grasps at Cala's arm as if anchoring himself. Identifying his place, his loyalty.

They spend barely another minute in silent conference, and then:

"Three," Deret whispers. "Two. One."

Cala's maz throws the door inward, and they tumble through the doorway in a throng. The soldiers have their steel, and Cala his hands up and itching with unspent energy, but Aisava seems scarcely to notice the dozen-odd Drazhadeise guards. He pelts across the room and falls at the Emperor's feet, and Cala and Deret follow. Around them, the room is chaos, but not as they'd anticipated. There is much shouting; many of the household guard seem to be laying down arms at once, and the others are merely shielding the Princess and Prince Idra, not making any aggressive moves.

Maia is standing, wan and startled but not half as pitiful a sight as Cala had expected. He looks disheveled, in naught but his nightshirt, but his face is drawn, serious. Cala slips a palm to meet it, cupping his emperor's cheek, beneath his terribly mussed hair. He does not dare try a maz, but he need not when he can see the steady size of his pupils, the warmth of his skin, the fast beat of his pulse singing, _Alive. Alive. Alive._ And the terrible cold abates for a moment.

As soon as Cala draws back, Deret puts an arm around Serenity's thin shoulder and tries to guide him to the door, but Serenity holds up a hand.

"Idra, with me," he says, loud enough to be heard through the din of shouting and scuffling, and the Prince slides into their little huddle. "The Prince was no part of this," Maia says firmly to the Guards who attend. "He shall require our protection, and we shall give it gratefully, for he has proved himself faithful to us tonight."

"Serenity, we must know if you are aware of how this occurred," Deret asks, and Maia's face tightens.

"Yes, we are aware. Is Telimezh --?"

"He will recover. And you, Serenity? Art unharmed?"

"Only bruised where we fell on the stone, we think," Maia says briskly. "And rather shaken, we are afraid to say --"

Deret barks a laugh. Maia looks startled. "We underestimate our Emperor, Cala Athmaza," the soldier says, his voice rich with some of the giddiness that follows terror. "Even an we found you hale, Serenity, we supposed you would be more than 'rather shaken'."

"Perhaps we are early to assess such things," Mer Aisava says sharply. He has risen to Maia's side and, Cala sees with some surprise, tucked his own hand into the Emperor's bare one. _He should have that small comfort, even an thou art not the one to grant it,_ he tells himself with mixed relief and envy.

"Mer Aisava has a point," Cala nods. "Serenity, we must evacuate you."

Maia nods absently, his gaze shivering from one dismayed face to the next as all about the room, soldiers and courtiers alike are clapped into irons. Deret takes the front, Cala the back, and as they take position, four of the Unthelineise Guard break off to join them. Then, with the Emperor, the Prince, and the slight Mer Aisava wedged between them, they move from the room to the humid corridor without.

"Wilt take my jacket, Serenity?" Csevet asks anxiously as they begin their trudge upwards. "It is colder above."

"No," Maia answers simply.

"S-Serenity," Idra says.

"Yes, Cousin?"

"My sisters. With your leave, we would go to them."

"An we find sufficient soldiers, we will send for them. Csevet, do we have a suite --?"

"There is a nursery, Serenity," Csevet says, hesitant - more fearful of Esaran's imminent eruption than worried he is misunderstanding, Cala suspects, although he doubts the emperor is enough aware of his own household's politics to read that correctly.

"That will suit our intentions," Maia says firmly.

"We will have them sent for at once, Highness," Cala murmurs to the prince, whose shoulders stiffen.

"We suppose there is no way to keep them from being frightened," he answers grimly, grey eyes finding Cala's blue ones as if hoping to find disagreement. Cala can't offer that, so he drops his gaze. The young man makes a small noise in his throat. "We suppose they _should_ be, no matter how we may wish it otherwise. But we cannot bring ourself to regret --" He swallows.

Cala wants to wrap the child in a quilt and curl him up beside a fireplace, press a warm drink into his hands and reassure him that he is a good lad. Distantly, he realizes that if things had gone differently, he might have been _Idra's_ nohecharis, and his fellow nohecharei too -- and for all that he finds himself liking the stubborn little prince, the thought freezes something in him, shakes some ice loose into his veins.

Until tonight, he thinks, he had not truly understood that he had accepted this new reality. That his life and Maia's, and Deret's, were now impossibly interwoven, not simply braided but _bound_. But now, as he tries to imagine a world where Idra Drazhar had been throned -- Varesidava III, perhaps, or Varenizhalis VI -- he feels as though he is imagining his life unmade.

And this brings him back to the wound he has taken deepest, perhaps -- that which he has deliberately folded away, for he knows he will need to break and reform, once he has time to absorb it:

_Dazhis did not feel the same._

**The Oath of the Maza to the Soldier**

Today, before these witnesses and any gods we hold,  
we pledge our life for thine, our heart for thine.

We recognize thy gifts and ours, a foundation to build,  
and lay the first stones before thee.

We will be thy shield arm, thy salvation and thy shelter;  
and we will bolster thee against any darkness.

For sundered from thee will mean to be no longer ourselves,  
and henceforth we shall be seen as one man,  
Body and Spirit unified for one purpose:

to guard the beating heart of the Ethuveraz,  
our Serenity,  
from this day until his last.

Together with thee,  
we become nohecharis.

**The Oath of the Soldier to the Maza**

Today, before these witnesses and any gods we hold,  
we pledge our life for thine, our strength for thine.

We recognize thy gifts and ours, a garden to grow,  
and plant the first seeds at thy feet.

We will be thy sword arm, thy warmth and thy warning;  
and we will bolster thee against any dangers.

For sundered from thee will mean to be no longer ourselves,  
and henceforth we shall be seen as one man,  
Body and Spirit unified for one purpose:

to guard the beating heart of the Ethuveraz,  
our Serenity,  
from this day until his last.

Together with thee,  
we become nohecharis.


End file.
